Tuesday, October 6, 2009

Hi, all! Josh has been really busy since he arrived in Hungary. He hasn't had much "down time" to use to write. His weekly time emailing hasn't produced much, either, because he's not only a fairly slow typer, the keyboards over there are in Hungarian and it takes a really long time for him to type even a little bit. So with a lot of train time last week he finally got off a good letter to us and we'd like to share it with everyone.

Kedves családom, (my kind family)

Wow I have been horrible with writing you guys. Right now I am down in Pécs (pronounced pay-ch) with the District Leader. His name is Foote Elder (remember in Hungary the title follows the last name) and he will be going home at the end of the transfer, so he’ll probably be home before you guys get this letter. He is an awesome guy who I wish I had the lehetőség (opportunity) to serve with. Hungarian is pretty difficult but when you break down some words it’s pretty funny. Like when you break down the word lehetőség. The “le” is the verb lenni-to be, the “het” is part of the hat/het rule, which means “can”. So, so far it’s basically “it can be”. Then the ő is an ending which turns verbs into nouns, so now it is basically “can be” or “possible”. Then the ság / ség is “ness” so “possibleness” or “possibility/opportunity”. Cool, huh? Or like the Police is Rendőrség. “Rend” means like “in order”. Rend ben means “ in order” because the ban/ben is “in”. So Rendben basically means “ok”. So the ő with an ? (sorry, I couldn’t make out what he put here). So “order” in a noun form, “people of order” basically, then the “ness” is “the people who maintain orderness”. Funny, huh?It gets really complicated though because words can get many different endings and then there can be combinations like these examples. Well how is everyone doing? It’s still difficult out here, but I feel it’s slowly getting better. I think part of what I don’t like is my first area. I don’t really like Komló that much. When I spend the day in Pécs I love my mission so much more. Because I’m more excited when I am in a city I like more, I get more comfortable with speaking even though I’m not terribly good yet. How has the swimming been coming along for everyone? Just hearing the stories I’m really starting to miss competitive swimming. And Jeremy, basketball is starting up here soon. I still hope you do that. I also hope that I don’t stink when I get home because I rarely get to play. But it will be fun when I get home and we get to play basketball together again. The classic old “21”, yeah baby!I hope all is well with you guys at home. I miss the smell and memory of walking into the house. Especially around this time of year when the Christmas things come out. Well, as I was going to tell you in my email about a few investigators, one we have is Zsuzsa, and she is still getting baptized in a few weeks here. She is soooo cool. She was going to go to the hospital for her shoulder but she wasn’t able to tell if she would be able to get out or not and so she didn’t go so that she could go to the multi-branch conference we had on Sunday in Dunaújváros. We were excited she was able to tell us that when we called to see how she was doing. Another one is András, or “Andrew” in English (also Zsuzsa is “Susan”). Anyway, he is an English student of ours and he usually comes early to class and so he eventually started asking questions and then agreed to meet with us. We have met with him about 3-4 times now and he came to the multi-branch conference and that was his first Mormon church experience and he loved it. I was falling asleep but he sang with us and was into it, even though it was an all-day trip. He said that he’d like to keep coming even without us asking him to. I asked him how he felt and he said that he felt good and will come every time. It was so cool because we told him the bus will leave at 8:30 and we agreed to meet at 8:15. We got a call around 8:02 and it was him saying, “where are you guys?” And he dressed up all on his own in a shirt and nice pants with shinier shoes than my comp (companion)! LOL. But I told him that we usually meet in Pécs for church every week and this was a special thing but luckily he still liked it. On the way home he asked us how he can become a missionary and stuff and I felt bad because he’s too old, but he can still do missionary work. Another cool thing is that the second time we met with him he told us that he not only read what we asked him to read but he also looked up all the stories for the pictures in the front of the BOM (Book of Mormon) and read those, too. I didn’t even know the pictures had references, ha! He has a problem with smoking but I hope he can get over that because he seems excited and very interested in the gospel. Another is Szilvia. She was a lady I met with and taught my first day here, then a few weeks later she moved out of her house and we were disappointed because she said she really liked meeting with us. Then one day we saw her on the street and we were actually talking to someone else and out of the corner of my eye I could see some people standing behind us. When we finished up with the other people we turned around and saw her and her husband. They wanted to meet again because she moved back to her house, so since then we’ve met about 3 times and they are just an awesome family. They have a daughter also named Szilvia and a cool 2 ½ year old, who is so funny, named Ádam. She almost died giving birth to him, then found out that she was pregnant again, so after much thought they decided to keep the baby that was to come, but sadly when we met with them the next week they had found out the baby died. She’s doing fine now and still likes to have us over.Then János (John) has a wife and small girl but so far his wife isn’t too interested, but he really likes what we do and really respects us. One time he couldn’t meet and he doesn’t have a phone so we pretty much got dogged. But we saw him on the street a few days later and he told us he got called to work. He felt so bad, though, so he bought us ice cream cones, sunflower seeds (yum), as well as cheese puffs, and he offered to buy us cigarettes, too! What’s cool about him is that he really wants to quit smoking so we are helping him with that. He still has yet to come to church. He says he wants to come and has been saying that without us asking him to, but he works a lot during the church hours so we really need to get him to come.Another awesome family is Szabina and Szilárd. They are in their early 20s with a small daughter. I actually streeted them and they decided to meet, so they are my first successful, progressing find in which I did the approach, but we’ve taught them a few times and they are soooo small! He’s like 5’3” and really skinny and his wife is even smaller and so I feel so big around them, but anyway, they really like when we teach them. They both work and usually on Sundays, figures, but they also want to come, but they like reading from the Book of Mormon and the father, Szilárd, has a lot of questions out of true interest and so he’s begun to pray almost 2 times a day. They are doing great and I hope they keep going better towards baptism. Then last but not least….Livia. She’s an awesome lady. She has maroon to red curly hair and those big, thick glasses that make your eyes look really big and she has the funniest little giggle. What’s weird with her is that she wants to be baptized and believes in the church but before she will be baptized she wants to go to India and speak with Sai Baba, who claims to be Christ reincarnated or something like that. (I looked on the internet and found a picture of Sai Baba.) I don’t know exactly but she told us she wants to ask him a question but we asked her if he even speaks Hungarian. She said that he will already know her question because of who he is and then she will return and be baptized. Well, I love you guys and hope everything is good at home. Love, Elder Joshua Hosch